Where Does the War on Terror Go From Here ?

Unfortunately, due to the fact that the Bush II administration did not pay for the War on Terror with current revenue during their time in office, then answer to this question cannot be divorced from the current fiscal dilemma.

Fortunately, the success of the military and the CIA with the blessing of the Obama administration has had great success in achieving our primary post 9/11 goal of keeping the country as safe as possible.  With yesterday's elimination of Anwar al-Awlaki and two of his key lieutenants the world is a safer place today. This now brings the near total elimination of experienced leadership to Al-Qaeda.  If only we could find Zwahari (sp?  The Egyptian hiding in Pakistan).  I note the use of drones, airpower and covert people in this success.

This does not mean we can let our guard down, but it does mean we need to reexamine what we can and cannot achieve with military might and our intelligence capabilities.  Monitoring bad guys is necessary.  Killing them is necessary since they want to kill us.  Nation building appears not to be necessary and is perhaps beyond our means both in capability and cost.

Now I do not mean we should simply abandon Iraq and Afghanistan in a matter of weeks or months.  We should leave them with as much capability to govern themselves effectively as we can, but we need to recognize what they are truly capable of becoming.  Iraq has a shot at being a Federated state with a national military.  But they will be a violent place while the politics of all this are being worked out.  We are on a path out of there that the Iraqi government approves of and I don't think we can aim for much more.  They are a sovereign state and not likely a source of terror plots upon the U.S..

Our use of drones successfully in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan show that we do not need troops on the ground to fight terrorists.  So what should be our goal in Afghanistan?  It no longer is the War on Terror.  It is to somehow leave them as a functioning nation-state.

However, there is a series of article on Bloomberg that started Thursday that shows even the U.S. in not a nation-state but rather a federation of nations within the United State of America.  The key distinction between nations and states is that the former is a set of common culture and values while the latter has clear borders and the powers of government.

Well Afghanistan has multiple nations within their state and the nations do not get along.  Furthermore, Afghanistan does not have a natural source of revenues for the country except for Opium Poppies.  They do have mining potential but you need some semblance of law & order for that to be achieved.  I am not an expert on how to achieve law & order in Afghanistan but I do believe our military has the best insights in how to achieve what can be achieved.  What they need to be held accountable for what is the best way to achieve this, how much will it cost and reminded that we cannot be there for as many years as we have been in Korea.  Our troops are basically safe when in Korea.  They are not safe patrolling Afghanistan.   Leaving our troops in a position to be attacked through Acts of Terror does not constitute attacks on us in the manner that 9/11, the Underpants bomber or any of the other Al-Qaeda methods did.

We need to declare victory for the War on Terror in Afghanistan and leave in a defined manner.  Our troops safety and our national finances depend on that.